Midweek Movie

Miller's
Crossing ( 1990 )

A highly
styled 'genre' film which can perhaps be seen as a pastiche of all gangster
movies. Tom Reagan is the laconic anti-hero of this amoral tale which is also,
paradoxically, a look at morals within the criminal underworld of the 1930s. Two
rival gangs vie for control of a city where the police are pawns, and the
periodic busts of illicit drinking establishments are no more than a way for
one gang to get back at the other. Black humour and shocking violence compete
for screen time as we question whether or not Tom, right-hand man of the Irish
mob leader, really has a heart.